An operational Iridium communications satellite and an old Russian communications relay satellite (widely reported as decommissioned) collided Feb. 10 over northern Siberia, destroying both spacecraft. Though details are still emerging, such an incident is extraordinarily unlikely. This unlikelihood itself may help shed light on the event and its implications.

AnalysisReports of the collision of two satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) on Feb. 10 hit the world presses the morning of Feb. 12. One of the crafts involved was an operational Iridium Satellite LLC communications satellite (part of the U.S. company’s extensive constellation); the other was an old Russian communications relay satellite that has been widely reported as nonoperational for roughly a decade. Stratfor is patently unconcerned with the collision’s effects on Iridium’s global coverage, even though that coverage is commonly thought to include extensive service to the U.S. military. (The company says that any impact was minimal.) Nor is Stratfor particularly troubled by the potential danger to the International Space Station (ISS), which also was reported to be minimal — the ISS orbits well below the altitude of the collision.

What is disconcerting is that the collision happened at all. Everything that has followed so far — the statements from NASA, U.S. Strategic Command and Iridium and the questions about debris danger (especially to the ISS) — is all par for the course.

The operational Iridium 33 (NORAD ID 24946) communications satellite and the reportedly long-decommissioned Cosmos 2251 (NORAD ID 22675) collided over northern Siberia just before 1700 GMT on Feb. 10. At an altitude of 491 miles, the incident took place well within the most heavily used band of LEO. Nevertheless, this is the first time in history that two satellites have collided. The statistical likelihood of this happening — despite how “crowded” that particular band of LEO is — is extraordinarily low, as the distances and vast empty spaces involved are enormous. In addition, the U.S. military cooperates with other agencies and entities that operate satellites in order to predict and prevent potential collisions. If these two satellites’ orbits were indeed stable, any collision should have been foreseen (though even the U.S. military cannot constantly track every object in the sky).

This is therefore an anomalous event. And there are essentially two ways to look at it.

First is the skeptical view — that because the statistical likelihood is so low, something more is at play here. While more details will always shed more light on an event, this point of view is based on the idea that if the odds against an accidental event are in effect astronomical, then what might appear to be incidental might have been deliberate.

In short, any object in space can be an anti-satellite weapon. The speed of orbital velocity (thousands to tens of thousands of miles per hour) makes the impact of even a screw or a bolt potentially catastrophic. The problem is one of guidance.

Related LinksUnited States: The Weaponization of Space U.S.: Satellites and Fractionalized Space Space and the U.S. Military: Operationally Responsive Space Space and the U.S. Military: From Strategic to Tactical Exploitation U.S.: The Real Reason Behind Ballistic Missile Defense Old Russian satellites might not be completely out of commission even after they cease to be useful for their original purpose. They might retain some maneuvering propellant, for example. But while an old satellite could be nudged into another’s path — in the case of Iridium 33, an established, stable orbit — the matter is a bit more complicated. While two 1,000- to 2,000-pound satellites are not small, they are not large, either. Actually achieving a collision requires more refined maneuvering capability and guidance, something not necessarily resident in the average early 1990s communications relay satellite (if that was all Cosmos 2251 really was).

Stratfor is not asserting that a long-dormant communications relay satellite was directed to hit another satellite. There is currently no evidence of it, and such an event has extremely long odds. But in an event that appears to be so improbable, some foul play is a potential explanation — especially in the year after the United States unequivocally demonstrated its anti-satellite capability in response to the 2007 Chinese anti-satellite demonstration. Russia is historically the only other player in the anti-satellite game, and at the moment, Moscow is seeking to convince Washington in as many ways as possible that Russia should be treated with deference and respect.

The alternative explanation is that reality no longer conforms to the conventional wisdom on the utter improbability of such a collision. Obviously, statistical probability is rooted in mathematical calculations, and there is no doubt that this event is both extraordinary and improbable. But the alternative to the deliberate cause theory is that the unlikely nevertheless took place.

Statistical realities remain, and even the most unlikely event can happen. Either way, satellites are not about to start dropping out of the sky. But a completely accidental collision could imply that what has traditionally been completely improbable is becoming, increasingly, merely unlikely — that the traffic in LEO has begun to approach a threshold where a new traffic management scheme is becoming necessary. The traffic management and debris problems in LEO have become increasingly prominent in recent years — there is no air traffic control in space — and the Pentagon has been clamoring for more money to protect its space-based assets and track debris.

In short, the Feb. 10 collision reportedly took place at orbital velocities of 17,500 miles per hour. Such energetic events create particularly large amounts of debris. Early estimates suggest some 600 pieces will be added to the list of some 18,000 objects currently cataloged and tracked orbiting the earth. Collisions like this increase the danger for satellites and manned spaceflight alike in those orbits and thus degrade the usability of whole swaths of LEO. This comes just as more and more countries (most recently Iran) are recognizing the economic and military benefits of satellites and are moving to become spacefaring. Though they are unlikely to occur through accident and coincidence, too many of these collisions and energetic events would considerably increase the debris problem. Such a development would begin to dramatically alter the landscape of LEO.

By ANDY PASZTOR Private spacecraft will begin docking with the International Space Station before the end of the year, months sooner than planned, after NASA gave the green light for the first cargo delivery by such a capsule.

Space Exploration Technology Corp. said the U.S. space agency has given tentative approval for it to conduct the late November flight. The launch will accelerate the shift to private ventures for future manned missions.

View Full Image.The flight will feature the initial effort to dock the company's Dragon capsule—the pioneer commercial spacecraft— with the space station, orbiting more than 200 miles above the earth.

In accelerating by at least several months the timetable for linking up with the station, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration will provide the company and other private space outfits a symbolic and potentially important financial boost. Closely held SpaceX, as it is known, is based in Hawthorne, Calif., and was founded by entrepreneur Elon Musk.

The technical sign-off by NASA is expected to be followed shortly by final agency approval. And it marks a transition for the U.S. manned-exploration program, which previously relied entirely on government-funded and federally operated boosters and space vehicles to take both astronauts and cargo into space.

The latest schedule shift, according to some industry officials, also appears intended to deflect criticism that commercial space-transportation providers may find it difficult to quickly replace NASA's recently retired space shuttles.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, slated to blast the capsule into orbit, is nearly three years behind the company's ambitious early projections. SpaceX originally envisioned as many as four test flights in 2010 to show that the booster and the capsule would be ready for service.

Until a few months ago, NASA officials were still expecting a pair of demonstration flights of the Dragon capsule in 2011 to ensure the safety and reliability of its systems. According to that scenario, SpaceX would have had to demonstrate rendezvous and berthing capabilities in separate flights.

Monday, SpaceX said the agency "has agreed in principle" to combine separate software and hardware tests into a single mission, slated to blast off at the end of November on a Falcon 9 rocket and dock with the station about a week later.

As a result, SpaceX expects to use the upcoming flight to deliver the first few hundred pounds of crew supplies to orbit. If all goes well, that will be at least several months faster than was projected under previous NASA schedules.

In its Monday release, SpaceX said that by combining government and private funding, it hopes to increase the reliability, safety and frequency of space travel. Depending on demand, the company said it has manufacturing plans that could turn out up to six Dragon capsules annually. A spokeswoman for the company, which signed more than a dozen launch contracts in the past year, said the late 2011 mission "kicks off what will be a rapid increase in the frequency" of operations.

Last December, SpaceX became the first company to successfully launch and recover a capsule from Earth orbit.

The pear-shaped Dragon capsules are slated to begin regular cargo-delivery missions for NASA in 2012, under a $1.6 billion commercial contract structured to pay the company based on the total amount of material shipped to the space station.Such performance-based payouts weren't part of traditional NASA contracts, which often relied on features that assured contractor profits regardless of delays or budget overruns.

Seeking to cut costs and revitalize NASA for deep-space exploration, President Barack Obama wants to use private space taxis to support the space station. NASA has provided seed money to SpaceX and a number of other companies to work on projects capable of transporting astronauts to and from the station by the second half of this decade.

Simultaneously, SpaceX and other commercial-space groups are vying to provide larger rockets and more-capable capsules, required for longer-term manned missions to venture deeper into the solar system.

NASA officials have said they are pleased with the progress made by SpaceX but also intend to continue to pursue other options, including a rival commercial rocket-capsule combination that has its own contracts to deliver cargo to orbit.

Between the fall of 2006 and spring of 2011, congressional auditors determined that NASA paid SpaceX more than $290 million for certain work to develop and test the company's cargo-transportation system. According to the same report, the company achieved more than three-quarters of 40 pre-determined milestones on schedule.

The accelerated cargo-delivery schedule comes as NASA and congressional leaders continue to spar over the cost and schedule of a proposed NASA heavy-lift rocket eventually intended to take astronauts to an asteroid and beyond.

NASA officials have said they are refining final cost estimates for a heavy-lift rocket able to blast 130 tons into space. It would emphasize space-shuttle designs and, at least initially, rely on solid rocket-motor technology. In later versions, NASA experts envision shifting more to liquid propellants and in-orbit refueling options.

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Space Exploration Technology CEO Elon Musk.NASA's proposed next-generation rocket would fly just twice in the next 10 years and, along with a manned capsule dubbed Orion, could carry a price tag as high as $38 billion, according to industry officials and lawmakers. Inside and outside NASA, critics of the heavy-lift alternative have said those cost and schedule projections compare unfavorably with projects being pursued by SpaceX and its peers.

NASA has also been hit by bipartisan criticism it hasn't adequately complied with congressional mandates to use shuttle-derived technologies for its proposed heavy-lift rocket. These critics fault its long-range exploration plans for improperly favoring commercially developed manned systems.

To try to resolve that dispute, some lawmakers have taken the extraordinary step of voting to issue congressional subpoenas to obtain internal NASA documents detailing agency decision-making. Such critics have accused agency officials of trying to sabotage the heavy-lift rocket concept, by giving Congress allegedly inflated cost figures and unrealistically long development timetables for that launcher system.

Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen indicated he is prepared to commit $200 million or more of his wealth to build the world's largest airplane as a mobile platform for launching satellites at low cost, which he believes could transform the space industry.

Announced Tuesday, the novel, high-risk project conceived by renowned aerospace designer Burt Rutan seeks to combine engines, landing gears and other parts removed from old Boeing 747 jets with a newly created composite craft from Mr. Rutan and a powerful rocket to be built by a company run by Internet billionaire and commercial-space pioneer Elon Musk.

Dubbed Stratolaunch and funded by one of Mr. Allen's closely held entities, the venture seeks to meld decades-old airplane technology with cutting-edge booster-rocket designs in an unprecedented way to assemble a hybrid that would offer the first totally privately funded space transportation system.

The ultimate goal—which has eluded corporate and government rocket scientists for decades—is to build a reliable and flexible aircraft-based launch option capable of hurling satellites as heavy as a pickup truck into low-earth orbit.

Intent on recycling parts to reduce both development time and expense, Mr. Allen nonetheless conceded in an interview that "the price of admission is stiff for these kinds of projects."

Messrs. Rutan and Allen, who made history in 2004 by teaming up on SpaceShip One, the first privately built rocket ship to reach the edge of space, now hope to modify and supersize that same concept. Industry officials estimate Mr. Allen spent at least $25 million on their original venture, and he doesn't dispute that.

Without releasing specific numbers, the billionaire investor and philanthropist reiterated Tuesday that the latest effort "will end up costing at least an order of magnitude more than I put into SpaceShip One."

Stressing that he has "long dreamed about taking the next big step in space flight," Mr. Allen released a statement emphasizing he hoped to usher in "the dawn of radical change in the space launch industry." But in response to questions from reporters, he said Vulcan Inc., his Seattle-based investment company, wouldn't be ready with such a large financial commitment "if we didn't think there were going to be a lot of customers."

.Mr. Allen and his team hope to offer attractive rates well below current launch costs, which can run anywhere from $30 million to more than $200 million, depending on the weight of the payload and height of the orbit.

The concept seems to border on science fiction. It envisions a behemoth mother ship with twin, narrow fuselages, featuring six Boeing Co. 747 engines attached to a record 385-foot wingspan, plus a smaller rocket pod nestled underneath. Expected to weigh roughly 1.2 million pounds, the combination would roughly match the maximum takeoff weight of the largest, fully loaded Airbus A380 superjumbo plane, but the wings would be more than 120 feet longer than those of the Airbus A380.

Flying at roughly 30,000 feet, the craft would climb sharply just as it released the rocket, which would use a cluster of four or five engines to boost itself into orbit.

The sheer size of the endeavor presents severe engineering and production challenges. While scientists have long studied the principles of air-launched rockets—Mr. Rutan recalls beginning preliminary work on such a project as long ago as 1991—Stratolaunch Systems Inc., as the new venture is called, still hasn't firmed up critical design details.

In an interview, Gary Wentz, a former senior National Aeronautics and Space Administration official tapped as the new company's chief executive, suggested the business case for the project also may be fluid. He didn't give details about the most likely types of missions and why the new system would manage to attract a wider range of customers than NASA's phased-out Delta II rockets, which Stratolaunch hopes to replace. The Delta II's production costs and other expenses were too high to justify serving limited government and commercial markets.

Unlike conventional rockets that blast off from a pad, air-launched systems similar to the one Mr. Allen wants to put together are designed to deliver a broad range of satellites to space without the constraints of weather or optimal times and locations to try to reach specific orbits.

As a result, the project's motto is "any orbit, any time," and a big selling point is that the carrier aircraft can relocate more than 1,300 miles without refueling to search for a suitable launch location.

Costs are supposed to be kept under control partly by recycling 1960's-vintage airplane technology and partly by spreading rocket development and operating costs across various commercial, military and civilian missions. Different-size versions of the proposed rocket already have flown and are currently under development by Mr. Musk's team for U.S. government and commercial launches, as well as for foreign customers.

If all goes well, Stratolaunch officials predict test flights of the hybrid space vehicles could begin in five years and commercial operations could commence by the end of the decade. "I'm optimistic because we're reusing so much existing technology," Mr Allen said.

Ultimately, the aim is to spur human space flight, though the officials acknowledged work on a capsule that potentially could carry astronauts or, less likely, a spaceplane with wings vaguely resembling NASA's retired space shuttles, remains at an early stage.

Mr. Rutan, renowned for his engineering prowess and penchant for secrecy, said in an in interview that one of the nagging questions had been "whether you could build something big enough to deliver a significant payload to orbit." The plan calls for launching satellites weighing up to 13,500 pounds.

Scaled Composites LLC of Mojave, Calif., the company Mr. Rutan founded and sold to Northrop Grumman Corp. years ago, is slated to build the all-composite structure. Mr. Rutan retired a few months ago but agreed to sit on the new company's board. Speaking of his close relationship with Mr. Allen and calling the former Microsoft chief technologist "a visionary" when it comes to space flight, Mr. Rutan said "he is more than someone you just go to for money."

The 58-year-old billionaire, along with high-school classmate Bill Gates, wrote the programming language that led to the founding of Microsoft.Since he left Microsoft in 1983, Mr. Allen has launched into a variety of enterprises. He founded a rock museum in Seattle as well as a computer museum that houses old mammoth-sized servers. He and owns the Seattle Seahawks football team and the Portland Trailblazers basketball team. He lost $8 billion in his investment with cable company Charter Communications when it filed for bankruptcy protection in 2009.

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Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft Corp..The proposed launch system also brings into the mix a third high-profile champion of commercial space flight: Mr. Musk, who so far has spent some $100 million of his personal fortune on Space Exploration Technologies Corp., a Southern California start-up that last December became the first commercial entity to successfully launch and recover a capsule from outside the atmosphere. His company, called SpaceX, is slated to supply a slimmed-down version of its Falcon 9 rocket.

With its historic breakthrough, SpaceShip One helped give birth to the fledgling space-tourism industry—its basic design was embraced by Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic LLC suborbital project. Virgin Galactic also harbors dreams of satellite launches, but its primary focus will be giving thrill rides exposing passengers briefly to the sensations of weightlessness.

In a statement Tuesday, the Virgin Galactic chief said he welcomed the announcement because "the potential of the industry we are leading is immense, but will depend on the continuing emergence of truly safe, affordable and transformative technologies." Messrs. Allen And Rutan, the statement said, boast a "record in that respect (that) is unmatched."

The latest brainchild of Mr. Allen, who also thought earlier about launching a space-tourism venture, suggests the logical evolution of commercial space efforts. Until now, the budding industry has primarily featured companies operating on their own and typically eschewing connections to mainstream space firms or leaders. But Stratolaunch Systems, based in Huntsville, Ala., the center of traditional U.S. rocket design, has former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin and Gwynne Shotwell, president of SpaceX, as directors.

'I wanted to create a spaceship where myself and my children could go into space, and our friends could go into space," exclaims billionaire CEO Richard Branson with his trademark toothy grin. Coming from someone else, this kind of talk might be considered mildly delusional. But in Mr. Branson's telling it's hard not to believe in the creativity of capitalism to better the world in ways you might not expect. Mr. Branson is in the Steve Jobs category of entrepreneurs—he believes that if he builds it, they will come.

I'm sitting with Mr. Branson in his Virgin Group's hip Bleecker Street offices, adorned with a big London Tube mural and modern art, ostensibly to talk about his new book, "Screw Business as Usual." Fine. After a long exposition from one of the world's best-known entrepreneurs on why it's okay to spend shareholder money on "the seemingly intractable problems in the world," I steer him into talking about his extreme tourism companies, Virgin Galactic and Virgin Oceanic.

"The best ideas come from people just wanting to create, like [Google co-founder] Larry Page in his garage just wanted to create a product that he could play with, and then you go and try to make sure that you can pay the bills at the end of the month," Mr. Branson says. He's flanked by Jean Oelwang, CEO of his empire's charitable arm, Virgin Unite, who doesn't seem pleased that I'm not interested in "high-impact social investment." But Mr. Branson is on a roll. "If I'd gone to the accountants and said, could you please work out the profit and loss of starting a spaceship company—especially when we didn't even have a spaceship—they would've laughed at me."

And for good reason. Governments have long dominated space, starting with the Soviet Union's 1957 launch of Sputnik 1. The U.S. soon followed. "If they'd used just a small fraction of that money as prize money and given it to the best commercial companies, that money would've been far better spent," Mr. Branson muses. "The $10 million [Ansari] X Prize very much sparked our move into space travel," he notes, referring to the competition organized by entrepreneur Peter Diamandis and launched in 1996.

Mr. Branson had dreamed of exploring the final frontier for decades. "I think it just simply goes back to watching the moon landing on blurry black-and-white television when I was a teenager and thinking, one day I would go to the moon—and then realizing that governments are not interested in us individuals and creating products that enable us to go into space," he says. In 1995, after making billions of dollars in the music and airline businesses, Mr. Branson registered a new company, Virgin Galactic (the name "sounded good"), at London's Companies House. Then the company started searching for rocket scientists and the right technology.

Several years later, in July 2002, Virgin's team traveled to California to check on American aerospace designer Burt Rutan's progress on the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer, a plane built "to circumnavigate the globe non-stop on a single tank of fuel," according to Virgin's website. Virgin discovered that Mr. Rutan intended to compete for the X Prize with SpaceShip One, the world's first privately developed spacecraft, financed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

Mr. Branson quickly struck a deal: Virgin would license Mr. Rutan's SpaceShip One technology from Mr. Allen if he won the competition. In 2004, Mr. Rutan did just that, and Virgin Galactic was off to the races.

Fast forward to this October, when Mr. Branson and his children Sam and Holly christened Spaceport America, which advertises itself as "the world's first purpose built commercial spaceport" and is located about 55 miles north of Las Cruces, New Mexico. In typical outsize Branson fashion, the 61-year-old rappelled from the ceiling of the hangar—now called the "Virgin Galactic Gateway to Space"—and, while dangling in midair, chugged from a bottle of champagne in front of a large crowd to celebrate.

Mr. Branson is still radiating enthusiasm. "We've got just short of 500 people now signed up to go, which is actually more people than have been up to space in the history of space travel, and we hope to put those up in our first year of operation," he says, predicting the first commercial flight by "about next Christmas," although he acknowledges that there have been many delays.

He hopes "to get the price down so that hundreds of thousands of people out there will have the chance to become astronauts; not just, you know, a very, very few wealthy people." Tickets today cost $200,000, with deposits starting at $20,000. The Virgin Galactic website enjoins interested parties to "contact one of our Accredited Space Agents around the world."

What's so important about an expensive, suborbital joy ride, I ask? "If it was just about the joy ride, that would be exciting enough in itself," Mr. Branson says, leaning forward in his chair. "But the fascinating thing about adventures like that" is that when people "push the limits" and see "what they're capable of, other byproducts come that they hadn't even thought of at the time." He proceeds to tick off an impressive list.

"We can put satellites into space at a fraction of the price that it currently costs," he says—and Virgin is working with a "tiny little" company (the name of which hasn't yet been publicly disclosed) to do just that. "Whereby, for instance, [on] Google, you can see what's going on six months ago, these satellites will be able to see what's going on right now."

Mr. Branson, a longtime environmentalist, envisions using the satellites as a kind of celestial Earth-protector to monitor tree cutting in the Amazon, catch and identify ships illegally fishing, and test whether "global warming is a reality or not." (Mr. Branson is a believer in climate change, even if the U.S. still has "skeptics"—like "The Wall Street Journal," he quips.)

The scientific applications are huge. NASA has already purchased a ticket for a flight, with the intention of conducting experiments in suborbit—and why not? Unlike the old Shuttle program, which had launches a few times a year, scientists could use SpaceShip Two to conduct several experiments a week. NASA is turning itself "into a body to contract out to private companies, and that makes sense," Mr. Branson says, "but it's obviously a great pity from the American taxpayer's point of view that they didn't do that 50 years ago."

Mr. Branson is excited about the potential for faster transportation, too. "In future years, we hope that we can turn our technology into very fast intercontinental airline travel," he says. "I can't promise that we're going to pull it off, but we're definitely going to give it a try. And from suborbital we'll definitely be going orbital." Analysts tell me that Virgin Galactic's mother-ship plane, WhiteKnight Two—which ferries SpaceShip Two aloft and drops it into the atmosphere—is made of light carbon and could have military applications, too.

Mr. Branson isn't the only businessman exploring private spaceflight. California's XCOR Aerospace, for instance, is building the Lynx rocket plane, which will also carry passengers and payloads. Test flights are scheduled for late 2012. Unlike SpaceShip Two, the Lynx takes off from a runway and doesn't depend on a carrier ship, so it has lower operating costs. Tickets start at $95,000 and the company may even beat Mr. Branson into suborbital space, if Virgin Galactic continues to have delays.

Could government regulation put a damper on these private space ventures? "You've got some very innovative thinking, I think, in government in America," Mr. Branson says, with officials "realizing that to start a whole new spaceship industry, they need some flexibility and they don't need to strangle an industry at birth by overregulating." He points to laws that limit liability in case of an accident, giving kudos to the Obama administration for supporting such efforts.

Space isn't the only frontier Mr. Branson is exploring. Virgin Oceanic plans to launch a one-person submarine in 2012 to "journey to the deepest part of each of Earth's five oceans." And "we hope to be going 10,000 foot further down than Everest is high. So it's going to be quite an eerie, six- to seven-hour trip heading down. But scientists are frothing at the mouth with the possibilities of what we could discover," Mr. Branson says. "In the history of mankind," only two people have ever been below 18,000 feet and the ocean is "twice as deep" as that.

After the first solo pilot tests the sub, Mr. Branson himself will pilot it to the bottom of the Puerto Rico Trench, near his private island of Necker in the British Virgin Islands. "It's going to be ridiculously exciting and absolutely terrifying as well," he exclaims. Someday he wants to build a business like Virgin Galactic, only taking paying customers—so called "aquanauts"—into the ocean's depths, but that's still some way off.

So what advice does Mr. Branson have for aspiring entrepreneurs? "Think of what frustrates you—and if you're frustrated by something and you feel 'Dammit, if only people could do this better,' then go try to do it better yourself. It can start off in a really small way . . . and you'll be surprised: If you're doing it better yourself, in whatever field it is, you'll be filling a gap and you suddenly might start creating a business."

BEIJING — Broadening its challenge to the United States, the Chinese government on Thursday announced an ambitious five-year plan for space exploration that would move China closer to becoming a major rival at a time when the American program is in retreat. Coupled with China’s earlier vows to build a space station and put an astronaut on the moon, the plan conjured up memories of the cold-war-era space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States, which has de-emphasized manned spaceflight in recent years, is now dependent on Russia for transporting its astronauts to the International Space Station. Russia, for its part, has suffered an embarrassing string of failed satellite launchings. China has been looking for ways to exert its growing economic strength and to demonstrate that its technological mastery and scientific achievements can approach those of any global power. The plan announced Thursday calls for launching a space lab and collecting samples from the moon, all by 2016, along with a more powerful manned spaceship and space freighters. In recent years, China has also sought to build a military capacity in keeping with its economic might, expanding its submarine fleet and, this year, testing its first aircraft carrier, a refurbished Soviet model. Under the new space plan, it would vastly expand its version of a Global Positioning System, which would have military as well as civilian uses. The plan shows how the government intends to draw on military and civilian resources to meet the goals, which the government is betting will also produce benefits for the Chinese economy. “This approach offers lessons for other advanced space powers, including the U.S., which needs to make sure it sustains its high-level investment in various aspects of space development across the board,” said Andrew S. Erickson, a professor at the United States Naval War College who has studied the Chinese space program. While a leader in the business of launching satellites, China is still years behind the United States in space. Its human spaceflight accomplishments to date put it roughly where the United States and the Soviet Union were in the mid-1960s. But China has consistently stuck to a development timeline for its program and met the realistic goals set out in its five-year plans, which are mainstays of the Communist Party’s authoritarian system. For human spaceflight, the plan lays out a continuation of China’s steady but unrushed efforts to develop technologies and extend its capacities. It says that China will begin the work to land its astronauts on the moon, but it does not provide a target date for when they will go. “I think it is a comprehensive, moderately paced program,” said John M. Logsdon, former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. “It’s not a crash program.” By contrast, NASA’s direction tends to shift with every change of presidency. President George W. Bush called on NASA to return to the moon by 2020. President Obama canceled that program and now wants the agency to send astronauts to an asteroid. NASA shut down its 30-year space shuttle program after a final flight in July. “The one thing that is admirable about their program is they don’t have fits and starts,” said Joseph R. Fragola, a space safety expert who has visited the space facilities in China. “Their program is low budget but it is laid out, and they follow it in an orderly process, and we don’t do that.” Experts say Beijing is approaching its space program the way it did its military modernization. In addition to the aircraft carrier, which it bought from Ukraine, China has also made a progress on an anti-ship ballistic missile, which could be deployed to ward off foreign warships. Last January, the Chinese military tested a stealth fighter hours before Robert M. Gates, the defense secretary at the time, met in Beijing with President Hu Jintao. Unlike in the United States, where there are separate military and civilian space programs, in China the People’s Liberation Army is the driving force behind development of the Chinese space program. Civilian institutions, including various universities and laboratories, are part of the military-led efforts. In the white paper that laid out the plan, released by the State Council, China’s cabinet, the authors took pains to say that Beijing was not seeking to challenge any nation militarily with its space program. “China always adheres to the use of outer space for peaceful purposes, and opposes weaponization or any arms race in outer space,” the paper said. (Page 2 of 2) Analysts say one of the more notable goals of the five-year strategy is to further develop the Beidou Navigation Satellite System, which on Tuesday began providing navigation, positioning and timing data on China and surrounding areas. The white paper said China intended to have a global system by 2020, with 35 satellites in orbit. If it met that goal, China would join Russia in having a system that tries to rival America’s. China has already launched 10 satellites for the Beidou system, and plans to launch six more next year. Beidou is not as advanced as its American counterpart, but it is expected to overshadow the Russian system and would provide the Chinese military with an alternative to relying on a civilian version of the American network. Beidou would also be used for civilian purposes, like providing drivers with a navigation tool. “This has major commercial implications, it has major security implications,” Mr. Erickson said. “To be a great military and space power, it’s important to have one’s own satellite navigation system.” The white paper, which follows similar reports released in 2000 and 2006, also said China would develop new Long March launch vehicles to deliver heavier payloads into orbit. It will also work on improving conditions for human spaceflight. To lay that groundwork, the paper said, China “will launch space laboratories, manned spaceship and space freighters; make breakthroughs in and master space station key technologies, including astronauts’ medium-term stay, regenerative life support and propellant refueling; conduct space applications to a certain extent and make technological preparations for the construction of space stations.” On deep-space exploration, the paper said China planned to launch orbiters that would make soft lunar landings and do roving and surveying. After that, the paper said, China will collect samples of the moon’s surface and bring them back for analysis. The paper also said China planned to carry out a comprehensive plan for upgrading its satellite technology and widening the uses of its satellites. “In aggregate, this is clearly going to propel China even further into space to a significant degree,” Mr. Erickson said. “There’s relentless progress across the board.” In 2003, China became the third country to send a human into space, behind the United States and the Soviet Union, when it put Yang Liwei into orbit around the earth. It launched a lunar probe in 2007 that orbited the moon and took pictures, and the next year completed its first spacewalk when Zhai Zhigang remained for 13 minutes outside the Shenzhou 7 spacecraft. China’s Long March 5 rocket, currently under development, would be able to lift about 25 tons to low-earth orbit, comparable to the United States’ Delta IV Heavy rocket and much smaller than the Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo spacecraft to the moon four decades ago. But that would be enough for China to get to the moon by launching its lunar spacecraft in pieces and assembling it in the earth’s orbit.

Newt has taken quite a razzing on his lunar colony idea, and Romney hit him with a devastating zinger in the debate last night about it, but I say Newt tonight speak at quiet uninterrupted length with Greta Van Sustern (whom I normally don't watch, but it was there when I turned on the TV to see if the new Spartacus was recording, but I digress , , ,) It was actually QUITE thoughtful. I doubt I can do it justice but before I go upstairs I would toss out some thoughts for consideration.

1) The Chinese ARE going.

2) The US space program, thanks to His Glibness, is in utter disarray. We even have to rent rides with the Russians to go to outer space to fix what we have up there now;

3) Much of our military dominance requires dominance of space and the Chinese are working to turn that into our Achilles' heel;

4) Anyone up to establishing a colony on the moon would be able to develop the ability to launch rocks, a.k.a. meteors, at targets on earth with the consequences of nuclear bombs without the radiation. (for the non-scientific gist of the idea, see Robert Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress")

" The moon also has two very important resources that would be useful for some country to control by military means, water and helium 3.

Lunar frozen water, recently discovered in great abundance, can be used to sustain a lunar settlement and refuel space craft headed to other destinations in the solar system. Control the water and one controls access not only to the moon but to destinations beyond.

Helium 3, an isotope not found on the Earth, is envisioned by some scientists as a clean burning fuel for future, fusion power plants. If and when fusion power becomes reality, control of the Moon becomes the rough equivalent of control of the Persian Gulf."

I used to be among the few who cringed at the space program. It is to me the epitome of public private partnerships. It is the answer to the question we aren't supposed to ask: Since we have all this power over other people's money, what should we do with it?

For the nation, we face a stagnant economy, fossilizing entrepreneurship, mounting deficits and debt, a constitutional, budget and political crisis over impending government heathcare, Arab Spring, Iran going nuke, Chavez offering to host, Iraq into civil war, Afpak! Burma, leadership crisis in N.K, possible war in the South China Sea... and Newt says, as predicted here by GM: "Oh look, a shiny orbital mirror!"

Editor's Note: This is the first installment of a two-part series on the evolution of the U.S. and Russian space industries.

SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corporation -- two private U.S. companies -- will each launch a rocket over the next week, the success of which is critical for their expansion as private space companies. SpaceX's launch will be its first with a new set of powerful rocket engines, essential for their Falcon rockets to deliver heavier payloads into orbit. Orbital is hoping that its Cygnus spacecraft will become the second private spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station. (SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft has done it twice.)

For the United States, private space development is key to furthering space exploration and technology over the course of the next century. NASA is incentivizing private space flight development by setting goals for these companies while providing them with some funding and eventually awarding NASA contracts to the most successful ones. The U.S. incentive program is particularly focused on improving the private space industry's more powerful rocket systems, which would enable them to deliver heavier payloads into orbit and also make them safe enough to launch manned spacecraft. Ultimately, the United States hopes competition between these companies will substantially reduce the costs of spaceflight.

Analysis

Several NASA programs are driving the push for private space development. The main initiative is the Commercial Orbital Transport Services program -- aimed at providing supplemental financial support to companies, which are competing for NASA contracts, to deliver supplies and crew to the International Space Station. NASA already has awarded contracts to the two aforementioned companies for cargo resupply trips to the International Space Station and is currently providing funds to three companies -- SpaceX, Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corporation -- which are competing to provide manned space flights to the International Space Station.

On Sept. 17, Orbital Sciences Corporation will launch its Cygnus resupply spacecraft on its Antares rocket to the International Space Station for the first time on a demonstration flight. While this is Orbital's first flight to the International Space Station, SpaceX has completed two trips in the past year and had been expected to fly its third resupply mission in December or January. However, SpaceX's third trip has been delayed, making the Antares demonstration important because it may be called upon for a quick turnaround resupply mission instead.

NASA's program for private manned flights to the International Space Station is intended to supplant Russia's Soyuz capsule as the preferred method for transporting NASA's astronauts to the space station. In addition, NASA is conducting a similar program for certifying private launch vehicles deemed safe enough to launch manned capsules (Russia's Soyuz-FG is currently the only launch vehicle NASA has certified). Those currently being considered are United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket, which Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corporation's spacecraft would use, and SpaceX's Falcon 9 v1.1.

However, none of the three competitors for the manned missions to the International Space Station will be able to compete initially with the Soyuz in terms of cost; it will remain cheaper for NASA to buy seats from the Russians for the foreseeable future. But eventually these firms will pick up spaceflight contracts that are currently going to Russia, even if they are more expensive than using Russian rockets. The United States' strategy is not about just developing these private firms and then using them as NASA's personal fleet, but cultivating an industry that can eventually succeed in the future without NASA's aid to bring down the overall cost of space missions.Reducing Lift Costs

The most important result of this strategy will be the added funding for developing private commercial space flight services -- particularly for lifting heavier communications satellites into orbit or lifting multiple smaller ones. SpaceX's Falcon rockets, United Launch Alliance's Atlas V and Delta IV Heavy are powerful rockets that can deliver heavy payloads into orbit, and NASA is hoping that the private space industry can eventually drive the costs down substantially, making the United States a low-cost commercial space launch provider in the future.Selected Medium-Heavy Lift Rockets

Launch vehicles can largely be broken down into several categories based on the mass of the payload they launch into low-earth orbit. Two launch vehicle classes -- middle- and heavy-lift launch vehicles -- are particularly valuable because there are few of these types currently operational and also because they can deliver larger payloads to various orbits. In addition, these classes have more strategic military importance because military satellites often serve a wider range of roles than commercial satellites, requiring more equipment onboard and making them larger and heavier. Many also go into orbits significantly beyond low-earth orbit. Medium-lift launch vehicles can also launch some of these satellites into low-earth orbit, but in the case of Russia, Japan, the European Union and the United States, they also service manned and unmanned flights to the International Space Station.

SpaceX's Falcon rockets may be the most ambitious. All of SpaceX's missions thus far have been with the Falcon 9, which used weaker rocket engines than the ones currently under development. The upgraded version, the Falcon 9 v1.1, will use newly designed rocket engines that provide more thrust, allowing for the launch of larger payloads. The engines, the Merlin 1D, ran into problems during testing earlier this year that delayed the first launch of the Falcon 9 v1.1. The engines were finally successfully tested in July, and now SpaceX is set to launch the rocket for its first flight on Sept. 15. While the SpaceX's Falcon 9 v1.1 has the hopes of eventually delivering astronauts to the International Space Station, the real prize is developing a heavy-lift launch vehicle, which helps the company reduce lift costs.

The Falcon 9 v1.1 itself is only able to deliver about 60 percent of what other, more powerful rockets can deliver into low-earth orbit. However, SpaceX will use a Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket in tandem with two additional Falcon 9 v1.1 rockets flanking it as boosters to form the Falcon Heavy rocket, which will be powerful enough to deliver as large a payload to low-earth orbit as any rocket currently in service. This will make it the largest rocket of U.S. origin until NASA deploys the Space Launch System, a powerful rocket intended to send capsules beyond earth orbit that will surpass the Saturn V as the most powerful launch vehicle ever designed. The Falcon Heavy's first launch is planned for 2014, but a successful Falcon 9 v1.1 launch is a prerequisite for that, making the launch Sept. 15 important for SpaceX's plans.

In addition, SpaceX is designing a reusable first stage (the first stage is the bottom part of the rocket that falls away from the rest of the rocket after liftoff) of its Falcon rockets -- SpaceX's Grasshopper rocket is testing the concept -- as part of an effort to reduce lift costs. The private U.S. space industry in this area of space flight exists primarily because NASA contracts make it economically viable, not because it is profitable on its own. Lowering costs enough to render direct NASA or U.S. government assistance unnecessary will likely require significant innovation -- the type that SpaceX is striving to meet -- such as reusing parts of the rocket to bring down operating costs. Other tactics will be necessary to make the private space industry viable, including advanced space technology applications such as mining objects or constructing larger vehicles or space stations in orbit, but reducing lifting costs is a prerequisite for achieving those, and this is what NASA and the industry are focusing on.

Editor's Note: This is the second installment of a two-part series on the evolution of the U.S. and Russian space industries. Click here for Part 1.

International Launch Services, a U.S.-Russian joint venture, is expected to launch a Russian Proton-M rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in late September or early October, making it the first Proton-M rocket to be launched since one exploded shortly after liftoff in July. The rocket had been scheduled for a launch in mid-September was postponed due to a technical issue. While a successful launch would not remove all concerns surrounding the reliability of the Proton-M and other Russian rockets, another failure could be disastrous.

Over the past few years, Russia's space industry has been plagued by launch failures and other problems due to an overreliance on outdated Soviet technology and quality control shortfalls. Despite this, Russia has emerged as the world's leader in commercial payload launches -- accounting for nearly half of all launches -- and taken over manned missions for NASA to the International Space Station. However, the continued growth of the U.S. space industry is threatening Russia's dominance, forcing Moscow to take initial steps to reform the industry.

Analysis

The space industry is important to Russia for two main reasons: First and foremost, it is a strategic resource for the Russian military. For example, the payload for the doomed Proton-M launch in July was three GLONASS navigation satellites -- Russia's alternative to the United States' GPS. While such a service has civilian applications, it also aids the military by providing more accurate targeting and navigation information.Orbital Launches 2011-2012

Second, the industry has economic importance, since Russia is responsible for about 40 percent of worldwide orbital launches each year. The size of the global space industry is now close to $500 billion, though much of the recent increase in value has been in communication and navigation technology, areas where Russia has not partnered with drivers in the industry internationally. Instead, Russia has become the dominant launch service for these platforms. Nonetheless, Russia is not integrated with the operation of satellites in orbit, so its value to the international space industry is dependent on its ability to successfully launch spacecraft.Recent Struggles

Since 2010, Russia has had numerous rocket failures, including four involving the Proton-M, hurting the country's competitiveness in commercial spaceflight. International Launch Services, the company behind the Proton-M launches, has had to reduce its price due to increased insurance premiums and concerns about the reliability of the Proton-M launches. The pervading problem with the industry has been that most of the technology has not significantly evolved since the fall of the Soviet Union. For instance, the Proton-M's first stage has only been moderately upgraded since its original inception in 1965 and was the cause of the July 2013 explosion.

Most of the other Proton-M rocket failures have been caused by one of the common secondary rockets, the Briz-M, that was introduced in 2000 but has developed a reputation for unreliability. This highlights another problem that Russia has faced: the advanced age of its space industry workforce. The average age of a worker in the industry is about 45, and the average age of one with a doctorate is about 60, meaning that the space industry will experience a demographic crunch within the next five to 10 years. Moreover, Russia has not cultivated a younger aerospace workforce or one that is entrepreneurial like the one in the United States. Numerous experienced cosmonauts have been leaving for more lucrative industries, as seen by cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov's recent resignation to take a job with Russian energy giant Gazprom.Selected Medium-Heavy Lift Rockets

The uncertain future of Russia's space industry has brought added scrutiny to the next launch of the heavy-lift Proton-M rocket, in light of the failure in July. While a successful launch would not erase all concerns about its reliability, another failure would be disastrous for its reputation and push other companies to launch their satellites and other payloads with competitors. However, it is important to note that the unreliability of the Proton-M has not affected the Soyuz rocket family -- the most frequently used rocket in history, which handles Russia's manned space flights to the International Space Station. Still, the Russian space industry's future is heavily tied to the Proton-M, which is already the world's second-busiest commercial launch rocket and Russia's most powerful launch vehicle.

Even as Russia deals with these problems, Russia's competitors have not slowed down. The private space industry in the United States is focusing on reducing lifting costs and developing powerful commercial rockets. This has the potential to affect Russia's market share in the future if the reliability concerns are not abated and Moscow cannot reinvigorate its domestic space industry.Russia's Response

The move in the United States toward a public-private model for the space industry, coupled with Russia's internal problems, is causing Moscow to reconsider the organization of its own space program. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Russian industry was partly privatized, with its research and development being undertaken by private companies in which Moscow retained some ownership.

On Sept. 4, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin announced the details on a renationalization plan that was hinted at immediately following the Proton-M's latest failure. Moscow will create a joint-stock corporation, United Rocket and Space Corporation, that will be initially 100-percent owned by Moscow and controlled by the Russian Space Agency. Within one year, nearly the entire Russian space industry will be consolidated under this corporation, containing 33 enterprises.

The effort is aimed at increasing oversight and efficiency in the industry, but there are factors that could limit its success. Because the industry was only partially privatized initially, reconsolidation and nationalization may not help matters much. The government already largely owns most of the companies. However, increasing efficiency by removing redundancies and improving coordination among the companies could be beneficial. Yet the biggest problem -- the dwindling amount of human capital in the industry -- is one that cannot be remedied by the space industry itself but instead will depend on Russia's education and incentive programs, as well as its demographic profile.

Regardless, Russia is moving forward with several ambitious projects, largely at the behest of President Vladimir Putin. The first is the construction of the Vostochny Cosmodrome in southeastern Russia, which the government hopes will be complete by 2018. Currently, all of Russia's manned and most of its commercial launches take place in Kazakhstan, and Moscow has been planning to develop a launch facility in Russia with the same capabilities since dissolution of the Soviet Union. The second is the Angara rocket family, expected to replace the Proton-M and several other Russian rockets, which will be launched primarily at the Vostochny Cosmodrome. In addition, the Angara-7 rocket will be more powerful than any other active Russian rocket. Yet, the Angara rocket family has been in development since 1995, and it is too early to predict whether it will prove more effective than the Proton-M. The first launch is currently scheduled for mid-2014, although this could be delayed.

The challenge for Russia will come not only from competition in the United States but also the declining number of sufficiently educated workers available for the Russian space industry. By bringing its space industry back under Moscow's close control, Russia is essentially taking the opposite approach of the United States, which is moving to privatize its space industry as a way to lower costs and improve results. Both strategies have their advantages. Historically national space programs have fared far better, largely due to the amount of capital available to them and their proximity to military applications, but it remains to be seen if this will remain true in the future.

Quick aside: Easterbrook is hands down my favorite football commentator. I've posted several of his columns on the football thread as well. He can be pretentious, but he is the smartest football commentator around, and willingly adds politics and other topics in his ESPN pieces.

From that article:News from Nearby Space: Meanwhile the more researchers learn about asteroid and comet strikes on Earth, these events seem much more common than previously assumed -- which is definitely not good news. Last summer, TMQ laid out the disturbing evidence that space-rock strikes powerful enough to cause mass extinctions were not confined to the primordial mists: Something gigantic smashed into the Earth about 10,000 years ago, and there might have been a severe comet or meteorite strike as recently as the year 535. Recently researcher Dallas Abbott of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University has found indications that a huge comet or asteroid fell into the Indian Ocean about 4,800 years ago, causing global tsunamis

Abbott's work is especially important because she is studying the oceans, not land. Most of what's known about past space-object strikes comes from the study of land craters. But three-quarters of Earth's surface is water; Abbott reasoned that three-quarters of space objects must crash into the seas. Her work suggests a lot of comets and large rocks have hit the seas, many recently in geologic terms. As recently as a decade ago, most scientists assumed that space-rock strikes powerful enough to cause general devastation happen only every million years or so. Now it looks like they are far more frequent. If a rock comparable to the one that struck the Indian Ocean 4,800 years ago struck today in Kansas, half the population of the United States might die. And as TMQ endlessly points out, what is NASA doing about this? Absolutely nothing.

NASA continues to waste about 10 billion of your tax dollars annually on a space station project that had no scientific value, existing solely to justify money for aerospace contractors and staff budgets at NASA manned-flight centers. NASA plans to waste 200-500 billion of your tax dollars on return-to-the-Moon missions that don't even have a theoretical justification -- the sole purpose of return-to-the-Moon is money for NASA insiders. Yet if a comet or large meteor was spotted heading toward our world, NASA could do nothing. And NASA isn't even researching possible anti-space-rock technology. No agency of your government wastes taxpayers' money more cynically or systematically than the National Aeronautics and Space Agency. If a big space object strikes the Earth, sending humanity's survivors back into the Dark Ages, our descendents will consider the present Washington government history's worst collections of fools for doing nothing while there was time.

NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy working on the International Space Station in May 2013. NASA/Zuma Press

Boeing Co. BA -0.50% appears positioned to beat out two smaller rivals for the bulk of a multibillion-dollar NASA contract to ferry astronauts to and from orbit, according to government and aerospace-industry officials.

An award to Boeing would represent a victory over the newer Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, which had been considered a favorite in many quarters because of its lower costs and nimbler approach. The decision on the development of space taxis will be a milestone for commercial space endeavors, locking in unparalleled authority for contractors to develop and operate vehicles with limited federal oversight. An announcement is expected as early as Tuesday.

Recent signals from the Obama administration, according to the officials, indicate that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's leadership has concluded on a preliminary basis that Boeing's proposed capsule offers the least risky option, as well as the one most likely to be ready to transport U.S. crews to the international space station within three years. The officials cautioned that a last-minute shift by NASA chief Charles Bolden, who must vet the decision, could change the result of the closely watched competition.

But interviews with numerous space experts from industry, government and elsewhere—all of whom have been monitoring developments closely—reveal a growing consensus that Boeing is likely to emerge as the big winner to develop and operate the nation's replacement for the space-shuttle fleet, which was retired in 2011.

If Boeing ends up with the largest share of the commercial-crew program's future dollars, the Chicago company could buttress its position as a leading force in U.S. manned space efforts for generations. One of the two other bidders—SpaceX or Sierra Nevada Corp.—is expected to obtain a smaller contract as a second source, these experts said. SpaceX is in a very strong position to get the nod, the experts added.

For virtually the first time in its history, NASA is also seeking to reduce risk and keep a lid on prices by maintaining competition involving a major program. The success of NASA's commercial efforts depends on long-term competition, according to James Muncy, an industry consultant and former congressional staffer. "I actually care more about NASA choosing two providers than any specific company I happen to favor."

NASA currently relies on Russian rockets and capsules to fly U.S. astronauts to and from the space station. The price tag has climbed to about $70 million a seat even as U.S. policy makers and lawmakers worry about continued dependence on the Kremlin.

A NASA spokesman declined to comment on the status of the proposals except to say "we anticipate an announcement in September." The agency plans to issue fixed-price contracts extending through 2017 that will include at least one manned demonstration flight linking up with the space station. Some industry officials expect a number of additional fights to be part of this round of awards.

Without commenting on the outcome, a Boeing spokeswoman said the company has demonstrated that "the method and order in which we design and test has been successful." Boeing's team "realizes this is a really tough decision for NASA," she said, and is "waiting patiently to roll full steam ahead" assuming the company wins the contract.

A spokesman for SpaceX also declined comment on its chances. But he said the company "has a track record of 100% primary mission success" on every flight of its Falcon 9 rocket. The company has developed more hardware for manned missions than any rival, the spokesman added.

A spokeswoman for Sierra Nevada, the only company proposing a winged vehicle designed to return to earth by landing on a runway, couldn't be reached for comment.

Southern California-based SpaceX had been widely seen as the leading competitor because of its success in reliably transporting cargo to the orbiting international laboratory. SpaceX's proposed manned system uses many of the same components, and the company and its supporters have long argued that its entrepreneurial style promises lower prices, newer technology and an opportunity to shake up NASA's traditional way of doing business.

But people familiar with the process said Boeing, with its greater experience as a NASA contractor, appears to have become the favorite partly because it has met earlier development goals in the same program on time and on budget. SpaceX didn't fully meet all of the critical design requirements, according to a person familiar with the details.

The dollar value of Boeing's potential contract isn't yet clear, and it depends on how many missions end up being included in the award. NASA currently budgets nearly $700 million annually to support the development of a domestically built alternative to Russian spacecraft, and it could spend billions more over the next decade to pay for ongoing transportation services.

Boeing's role in NASA projects stretches back nearly four decades and includes serving as the prime contractor on the space station. The company also has a primary role developing a deep-space rocket for NASA. "They know the customer and what the customer wants to hear," said a former NASA official keeping tabs on the program.

Many of the agency's engineers and scientists favor Boeing, which intends to use 1990s-vintage Atlas V rockets to blast crews into orbit. Boeing officials have repeatedly said they won't continue to develop the CST-100 manned capsule, which has been in development for three years, without further government support.

By contrast, SpaceX supporters emphasize that in little more than a decade, the closely held company has developed two rockets, three different engines and a capsule designed, from the beginning, with the essential safety features required for manned missions. Founder and Chief Executive Elon Musk and other senior company managers have said they plan to continue development of the Dragon capsule regardless of NASA's decision.

William Gerstenmaier, a 37-year veteran of NASA and the associate administrator in charge of manned exploration programs, is the lead official in the selection process.

As of midday Monday, congressional leaders hadn't been briefed on any impending announcement. Boeing and its backers in Congress have been pushing for a single award, arguing that NASA can't afford to support two contractors.

But Eric Stallmer, incoming president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation trade group, said that having two contractors gives NASA more options and "much greater leverage" to keep the work on track. White House and NASA officials have made the same point in recent years, emphasizing the importance of moving away from a single-source provider of transportation into orbit.

Whatever the outcome, one aspect of Boeing's proposal already has provoked lots of discussion inside NASA, various Pentagon offices and among White House science aides. The Atlas V rocket to be used by Boeing includes a Russian-built engine, and the Obama administration has made it clear it wants to secure a domestic alternative to ensure that NASA and military satellites will continue to have unfettered access to space.

Such broader national security concerns ultimately have to be factored into NASA's decision, according to current and former government officials.

NASA Commercial Crew Plan Is Scant Progress Originally published at CNN.com.

It didn't take a rocket scientist to predict that NASA's plan to pay Russia to launch American astronauts into orbit wasn't going to turn out well.

Three years after NASA retired the space shuttle program, relations between the United States and Russia are worse than at any point since the end of the Cold War. Americans have reportedly been paying Russia $70 million a seat to send our astronauts to the International Space Station. That's three and a half times what the Russians charge private space tourists for the same ride on their 1960s-era spacecraft.

Now Russian President Vladimir Putin is reconstituting the Russian empire, and senior Russian officials have reacted to our economic sanctions by suggesting that Americans "bring their astronauts to the International Space Station using a trampoline."

NASA and our elected officials are to blame for this embarrassment.

NASA has tried to replace the shuttle on its own before resorting to the commercial industry -- programs that were canceled after ludicrous cost overruns and technical setbacks. And worse, politicians and bureaucratic backscratchers repeatedly undermined the nascent commercial space industry, where new American companies are working to do less expensively what NASA was failing to do itself: develop a spacecraft capable of carrying humans into orbit.

Instead of accelerating the creation of a thriving commercial space industry, NASA's second choice -- after its own program failed -- was to pay the Russian government rather than American companies for tickets into orbit.

But now that NASA's funding of the Russian space program has become unattractive politically, its 4-year-old program to hire American companies to send crew to the International Space Station takes on new importance.

On Tuesday, NASA announced the winners of its "commercial crew" competition.

Which of the entrants did the agency award for the biggest contract?

Was it SpaceX, a new leader in commercial spaceflight, which has gone from startup to multibillion dollar company in just over a decade, spent hundreds of millions of private investment designing and building three new rockets and a human-rated space capsule, completed more than a dozen launches and lined up dozens more for commercial customers, and proved itself more cost effective than its larger competition?

Was it Sierra Nevada, another private company that has developed a small, winged space plane that lands passengers returning to Earth comfortably on runways, rather than sending them hurdling into the ocean -- giving the design a unique commercial potential?

No. The largest contract in a program designed to boost competition within the commercial space industry went to Boeing -- the gigantic, heavily subsidized government contractor with a history of huge cost overruns. Although SpaceX did win a smaller prize of its own, the fact that the old incumbent is getting a contract to provide services to the space station is going to limit the promise of America's commercial space industry.

But worse, despite committing to purchase some of these services from Boeing and SpaceX, NASA is still reportedly at work on its own, vastly more expensive design, the Space Launch System, in which Boeing is also involved.

To anyone who isn't a NASA employee, a NASA contractor or a U.S. senator with a protected workforce in his state, this makes no sense. NASA should not be developing its own proprietary version of capabilities it could purchase commercially at much lower cost, especially when we know the agency's bureaucratic tendencies will be to view the commercial versions as competitors to kill.

Instead, Congress should kill the NASA version and require the agency to purchase basic launch services from companies such as SpaceX, Sierra Nevada, and even Boeing -- if it can make its designs cost-competitive. Commercial space advocates in Congress have been trying to do this for years, but bureaucracies -- both government agencies and their giant contractors -- are extraordinarily adept at protecting themselves and their interests.

In addition, Congress should hold hearings on why NASA selected such an expensive proposal for its commercial crew program when potentially cheaper, more innovative designs were available.

Tuesday's announcement was a modest step forward for the commercial space industry, since it will mark the first time NASA has bought tickets from American companies to send astronauts into space. But NASA will need to embrace new entrants and promote a lot more competition to make sure this one small step for NASA isn't one giant leap backward on the taxpayer dime.

As existing technologies proliferate and new developments provide greater access to space, Cold War frameworks for the peaceful sharing of Earth's near orbit will erode. The reliance on space-based systems, such as satellites, and the deterioration of existing regulations make the militarization of space inevitable. The U.S. reliance on electronic networking for military and intelligence operations is a key vulnerability that countries such as China could exploit. Competition for resources in the solar system will inevitably lead to conflict and military posturing.

Analysis

Editor's Note: Stratfor charts the evolution of geopolitically significant technologies. In recent years, the effort to push Earth's boundaries and to exploit the reaches of near-Earth and interplanetary space has accelerated, thanks in part to scientific discoveries and impetus from the private sector. There has also been renewed interest from national militaries, as space-exploring countries vie for dominance and control over the regulatory environment. Stratfor will continue to explore the imperatives behind the push to dominate space, the inherent constraints of operating beyond Earth's gravity well and protective atmosphere, and the new developments in materials, science and engineering that will help facilitate further exploration. This first installment of a continuing and occasional series looks at the emergence of space as a competitive arena and at the legal frameworks, not updated since the Cold War, that govern Earth's immediate vicinity.

For most strategic planners, space represents the ultimate high ground. In the same way that control of the skies added a new dimension to combat in the great wars of the 20th century, the military exploitation of space will be a defining characteristic of the 21st century. German rocket technology propelled the first unmanned systems into space during the latter stages of World War II. These systems traveled beyond the Karman line — the commonly accepted boundary between Earth and space, at around 100 kilometers altitude (62 miles). From the late 1950s onward, the ability to routinely launch manned and unmanned systems into orbit heralded a new era of competition between the Soviet bloc and the West, led by the United States. As the Cold War progressed, the utilization of the near-Earth environment shaped a new strategic aspect to the conflict and added another battlefield in which the world's superpowers could compete.

In the standoff between the post-war powers, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) were the only weapons to enter space. They were projected on an arc that took them beyond the Earth's atmosphere before deploying warheads carried by re-entry vehicles to their targets. There were no existing defensive systems that could be stationed in space or close enough to ensure the destruction of the ballistic missiles themselves or of their deadly payloads. The development, staging and maintenance of space-based weapons and bases was untenable at the time, so treaties limiting what could be done in Earth's immediate vicinity were relatively uncontroversial and easy to pass.

These pacts also hoped to address some of the prevalent fears of the time, including concerns about nuclear explosions in space and about debris descending back to Earth. U.N.-brokered regulations were based on existing Cold War technologies, capabilities and expectations, influenced by the fact that emerging space law was particularly ambiguous. Therefore, existing international law considers the lowest perigee attainable by an orbiting craft: Anything in orbit is taken to be in international space, and anything not orbiting is accepted to be in national airspace. The problem with legal ambiguity, however, is the extent to which gray areas can be exploited for gain.

Yet, as technology improved and countries' strategic imperatives evolved, so did the consideration given to the domination of space. The announcement of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1983 was heavily criticized, but it proved that the logical evolution of missile defense involved orbital platforms as well as ground-based systems. Although the initiative — known by its more popular moniker Star Wars — did not reach fruition, the United States still achieved global military superiority in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In achieving military dominance, the United States came to increasingly rely on space-based infrastructure to wage war. While Washington adhered to the prohibition on placing offensive weapons — including kinetic kill systems, directed energy weapons platforms and missile-carrying satellites — in space permanently, the United States installed a huge portion of its electronic networking capability in orbit, enabling it to intervene in conflicts around the globe. Military satellites were the lynchpin of a network-centric approach to operations, comprising command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance structures, better known as C4ISR. The evolution of C4ISR coincided with the advent of precision-guided munitions and the drone revolution, enabling the free movement of near real-time data. Everything from GPS, early warning monitoring, weather tracking, tactical and strategic communications, and full-spectrum intelligence gathering is facilitated through the United States' expansive network of military satellites.

However, the U.S. military is not the sole operator of space-based infrastructure. Countries with advanced space programs, such as China, Russia, Israel, Japan and some NATO alliance members, all rely on some military space-based capability. And the trend is only increasing. As much as the United States leads the field, however, it is increasingly reliant on its space-based systems — of which a significant percentage are highly vulnerable and largely indefensible. This vulnerability has not escaped the notice of the United States' biggest competitors. By finding a way to disable space-based systems, a potential antagonist could disconnect the multiple interlocking U.S. military systems, plunging it into information darkness and delivering a critical blow ahead of any physical strike — and to do so would not violate any existing space treaty.Emerging Threats

The single biggest example of this threat to U.S. military orbital systems comes from China. A progression of Chinese anti-satellite missile tests carried out over the past few years has alarmed the Pentagon. Though there are still limitations to the effectiveness of ground-based anti-satellite weapons — namely the tracking and accuracy requirements, given the speed, size and altitude of satellites — the technology is rapidly advancing. For countries that are still developing militarily, there is a strong incentive to pursue anti-satellite technology in the hope it could neutralize or disrupt one of the greatest advantages that the United States has: its C4ISR infrastructure.

Most other countries do not have the same vulnerabilities as the United States, which makes it difficult for Washington to impose the kind of retaliatory deterrence structure that worked so well during the nuclear arms race. In other words, the United States cannot use the threat of disabling other countries' space-based communications infrastructure to prevent attacks because other countries do not rely as heavily on the technology. So U.S. Space Command faces a conundrum: How does it cover what is a largely exposed and defenseless flank?

Perhaps partly because of concerns over Chinese anti-satellite tests — the most recent of which was conducted Oct. 30 — the Pentagon has recently started to talk about "space control." And the shift in language could indicate a change to the U.S. defense approach. Washington knows that to be proactive may mean stepping beyond the boundaries of the Outer Space Treaty, and the move would not be without precedent: Reagan showed a willingness to overstep the treaty with his Star Wars program, though he was ultimately stalled because of a lack of political will and technological capability.The Space Race

As Washington works to secure its orbital technology, it also realizes that competitors are catching up. This is not to say that the U.S. military has been negligent in developing and expanding its capabilities. The United States leads the field in ballistic missile defense (BMD), and many of its maturing systems are designed to operate outside of the Earth's atmosphere. The United States also dominates space-tracking infrastructure: Being able to see other countries' space-based systems is beneficial from both a defensive and offensive perspective.

The U.S. Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system has the ability to reach into space and to attack ICBMs in the middle of their flight trajectory. A key component of GMD is something known as an exoatmospheric kill vehicle, which separates from its boost vehicle in space and collides with an incoming projectile. This technology does not violate existing space treaties but is revealing of the way military planners — and the defense industries that serve them — are thinking.

Regulation and enforcement is not clear, but the trend is. As militaries around the globe expand their capabilities, so will they increase their reliance on space-based systems. Thus space will become increasingly militarized. The push to expand, occupy and dominate space will eventually erode the efficacy of the current treaty structures set in place decades ago. Currently, all space-based military infrastructure supports terrestrial operations. But long-term considerations about the eventual exploitation of resources in the broader solar system factor into current debates. When space exploration and the collection and refinement of resources become economically feasible, competition will inevitably ensue.

History tells us that such opportunities for resources rarely go smoothly or unchallenged, though deep-sea mining shows us that peaceful competition is possible. Still, generally, competition on Earth has led to perpetual conflict and military posturing, so it is logical that competition for resources elsewhere could inevitably lead to more conflict and could necessitate the ability to project military power there in one form or another. Closer to home, we can look to the opening of the Arctic for comparison: There is no clear precedent for ownership, there are mineral resources present, and only certain countries have the technological know-how to explore and exploit such an inhospitable environment. Countries have already staked their claims and military posturing has begun. As the ability to capture the riches of the solar system becomes more viable, it is highly likely that similar disputes will emerge in the more forbidding environment of space.

Countries will continue to develop anti-satellite weapons to counter space-based military assets, including existing communications satellites and potential weapons. However, as improved technology lowers costs and more countries deploy satellites and anti-satellite technology, space debris will become a bigger problem for all militaries with a stake in space. Ultimately, with the U.S. military the most reliant on space-based technologies, the United States will have the most to lose from advances in other countries' anti-satellite systems.

Analysis

The militarization of space started long ago, but true weaponization has yet to begin in earnest, at least publicly. Modern militaries depend on satellites for a number of vital functions. Orbital platforms act as a force multiplier for terrestrial operations and enable thermal image acquisition, weapons targeting through GPS and worldwide communications. Though space weapons have not yet been effectively deployed, the threat that they could be — and the widespread use of non-weaponized satellites for military purposes — has led countries to rush to create anti-satellite weapon technology as a deterrent. The problem is that this anti-satellite technology (widely referred to by the acronym ASAT) can also be used to target any satellites in orbit, particularly those used by the United States and its allies. The deployment of ASATs, though, comes at a price: The more anti-satellite weapons are used, the more debris from destroyed satellites is created as a result. This debris is continually and indiscriminately harmful to commercial and military satellites alike, and the situation is only getting worse.

ASAT technology first became apparent during the Cold War, but over the last decade it has become an area of intense competition for the world's most capable militaries. And as these militaries develop and refine the associated technologies, ASAT capability will become cheaper and more accessible to smaller militaries. More nations will inevitably join the reinvigorated space race, as Iran and North Korea already have. The problem is that the more satellites are destroyed, the more space debris is created, which poses an indiscriminate threat. Yet there is little alternative. Larger militaries want the assurance that they can counter any attempt to weaponize and militarize space, and international endeavors have largely failed to provide those assurances through diplomatic means.

Space Race Redux

Once a country shows an interest in boosting its space capabilities, all others become concerned about the potential ramifications and follow suit. China began testing its ASAT capability as early as 2005 and in 2007 successfully destroyed a defunct weather satellite. This was the first successful, unclassified ASAT test by any country in more than two decades. Since then, Russia and the United States have also displayed their own ASAT capabilities, and in the last six months both China and Russia have carried out further tests, though they did not actually destroy a satellite.

Such tests are really a matter of deterrence rather than a response to space weapons. The United States still maintains that its testing was done to remove satellites with problems. The fact is that no offensive or defensive weapons have been deployed in space — at least none that have been publicly disclosed. The closest thing that exists to space weaponry today is the Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), which has a suborbital spaceflight trajectory that goes well into low-Earth orbit.

Actually putting weapons in space poses a number of problems. Any space-based arsenal, along with its associated systems, would be incredibly susceptible to attack and extremely cost inefficient. Satellites are vulnerable by nature, and weapons platforms would require some form of point-defense system, either integrated or stationed nearby. An effective space-based missile system would also require a massive number of satellites to sufficiently cover any given area of Earth. Reloading would also be expensive and time-consuming. For these practical reasons, the United States has suspended all of its unclassified space weaponization initiatives — including the "Star Wars" program of the 1980s — and has focused its attention instead on cheaper ground-based systems.

Despite the suspension of its space-based weapons programs, the United States continues to nurture its ASAT capabilities. Washington seeks to defend itself from other countries with a desire to weaponize space, while also protecting allied non-weapon satellites. Other countries remain interested in ASAT technology because it enables them to critically enfeeble the U.S. military. In effect, the United States' technological advancement is also a potential weakness. Simply put, satellites are difficult to defend: Their orbits are relatively predictable and they are hard to hide and maneuver.ASATs: A Short History

ASAT development was a major part of the Cold War space race. As soon as it became obvious that satellites would soon have military importance, ASAT technology became a national security priority for both Washington and Moscow. The United States and the Soviet Union successfully tested various ASAT platforms, demonstrating the ability to take down each other's satellites. In a sense this game played out similar to nuclear deterrence theory, as both countries recognized that attacking the other's military satellites would result in a proportional response — one that was largely indefensible.

During this period, there was also a great deal of mutual cooperation when it came to regulating space. There were several — albeit limited — treaties devoted to terms of competition, including a ban on deploying nuclear weapons to space or even on the moon. The first ASATs lacked sophisticated guidance systems and nuclear blasts were conceived as a way to compensate for this deficiency. However, an outright ban on anti-satellite weapons was never achieved, despite frequent diplomatic efforts and periodic voluntary bans by the United States and the Soviet Union. One thing did, however, become clear: ASATs do not simply pose a conventional security risk. The debris created by the destruction of satellites forms a significant environmental hazard for all countries with business in space.

As competition between Russia and the United States eased, so did the focus on ASAT technology. That changed in 2007, when China became the third country to destroy a satellite in orbit. Beijing staged further tests in 2013 — with the highest suborbital rocket launch in several decades — and again in October 2015. In response, Russia has become more aggressive in pursuit of its own ASAT program, essentially showcasing its capabilities, which had come under question since the fall of the Soviet Union and the demise of its associated military programs.

Russia conducted ASAT tests last November, and recently announced plans to modify some of its existing ICBMs to target 99942 Apophis, an asteroid that will come close to Earth in 2036. The United States, for its part, demonstrated its own ASAT capabilities in 2008, one year after China's first test. Washington targeted a satellite that allegedly posed a threat to other satellites. Space is once again becoming an arena for multinational competition, even beyond the United States, Russia and China. Still, that does not mean there will be a massive weaponization of the near-Earth environment any time soon. Even the largest militaries are constrained by cost and efficiency when planning space programs. ASAT technology, though, will be the first focus. While technically not a space weapon, anti-satellite systems can deter further weaponization as well as attacks against satellites in general. North Korea, South Korea, Japan, India, Iran and Israel could all begin pursuing ASAT capabilities in the near future.Protecting Space Assets

Various militaries are also trying to address the question of how best to defend against ASAT attacks. The major concern is that satellites are inherently vulnerable to existing surface-based systems. Anything circumnavigating the Earth is difficult to hide: Satellites follow predictable orbits and have minimal maneuverability because of physics and propellant limitations.

Redundancy is one of the most practical ways to limit the threat posed by ASATs. Drones could potentially replace some of the functionality of satellites in the near future, and the proliferation of tiny, comparatively cheap CubeSats offers tantalizing possibilities. But both of these options are complicated and resource intensive, meaning that only the United States could perhaps broadly adopt selected alternatives to satellites. China and Russia could pursue localized alternatives, but other countries would be severely constrained in their approaches.

The United States relies the most on space for military purposes, and in a way that is a significant departure from the deterrence dynamic of the Cold War. This dependence makes the United States particularly vulnerable to attack, and it reduces the potential cost to any attacker. However, a nation that deploys anti-satellite weapons to destroy enemy satellites creates a potential risk to its own space capabilities, thanks to the creation of debris. So, as militaries work to hone their ASAT capabilities, they must also work to find ways to reduce the creation of space debris and to protect their satellites from it. Japan has already begun testing a "space net" type satellite that would glide through space, capturing debris. A space net would have immediate applications in an anti-satellite role, if it were deployed that way. And, like any other threat, ample consideration must be given to effective countermeasures.

The development of space-based military systems as well as surface-based weapons to counter them is costly and not without challenges. As a result, the technology will be slow to develop. However, it is clear that the militarization of space will only increase. As noted, China, Russia, and the United States are already developing their space technology alongside the weapons needed to target opposing space technologies. Other nations will follow suit, if they are not already doing so. Unfortunately for the United States, as the country with the most reliance on space-based systems, it will continue to be the most vulnerable party as this new space race continues, at least for the foreseeable future.

Space is becoming more congested, contested and competitive. Since the Soviet Union put the first satellite, Sputnik I, into space in 1957, no nation has deliberately destroyed another's satellite in orbit. But there is a growing possibility that battles may soon be waged in space.

Although the militarization of space started long ago, a number of technological developments and tests over the past decade show that the race toward its weaponization is accelerating. Driven by Washington's dominance of and strategic dependence on space, U.S. rivals are working to develop and deploy anti-satellite weapons (widely known as ASATs). The technology, which began to be developed during the Cold War, has become an area of intense competition for the world's most capable militaries over the past decade.

For the United States, being the leader in military space technologies provides immense advantages. At the same time, its outsize reliance on those technologies entails risks. The current unequal dependence on space, the United States fears, could give adversaries incentive to attack its infrastructure in orbit. Washington is therefore pushing to bolster its capabilities and is preparing for the possibility that a future conflict could escalate into space. As the militarized space race continues, the United States will stay focused on deterrence. A war in space would be devastating to all, and preventing it, rather than finding ways to fight it, will likely remain the goal.An Unequal Dependence

Washington's dependence on space infrastructure reflects the United States' dominance in space. The tyranny of time and distance inherently hinders the United States' ability to deploy its military across the globe. But the space domain effectively helps the country to overcome the limitations, allowing for enhanced force projection. As a result, the U.S. military relies heavily on its orbital assets for navigation, intelligence collection, precision targeting, communication, early warning and several other crucial activities.

The great advantages that space assets afford the United States have not gone unnoticed by its potential rivals. Though China and Russia, for instance, also rely on space, they are less dependent on their space assets than the United States is. First, neither nation has as much in orbit. In addition, because both put greater focus on their immediate geographic regions, they can use more conventional tools to achieve their objectives. For instance, Beijing, by virtue of geographic proximity, could rely on its ground-based radars and sensors in a conflict in the Taiwan Strait. The United States, on the other hand, would have to lean on its satellites to support a response in the same area.

Despite the United States' superior ability to strike at enemy space constellations — groups of similar kinds of satellites — competitors may determine that the resulting loss of space access would be worthwhile if they could severely degrade U.S. space access. And while the United States is the most proficient nation in space-based warfare, there are limits to its abilities. Satellites in orbit follow predictable movements, have restricted maneuverability and are difficult to defend from an attack.

There is little doubt that a full kinetic strike on U.S. satellites, which would inflict physical damage, would invite a devastating response. But tactics designed to degrade the satellites' abilities, rather than to destroy their hardware, could be deemed less escalatory and therefore perhaps worth the risk. These include jamming signals, hacking operational software and dazzling (temporarily blinding) or permanently disabling sensors. Calculating the risk of nonkinetic strikes, which would create little physical damage and could even be reversed, a potential foe would take into account the United States' hesitance to escalate a conflict in space, given its heavy dependence on orbital technology.Reinforcing Deterrence

If the United States wants to preserve its primacy in the face of increasing threats to its strength in space, Washington will need to invest in strategies to deter attacks on its orbital assets. The first step in strengthening space deterrence is to ensure proper attribution: The United States cannot hold its enemies accountable for attacks if it does not know who initiated them. But the vastness of space, along with the difficulty of obtaining physical evidence from attacked satellites, can make responsibility hard to prove.

To that end, the United States is investing in a second-generation surveillance system, known as Space Fence, to track satellites and orbital debris. Slated to begin operating in 2018, Space Fence uses ground-based radars that give it 10 times the detection capability of its predecessor, the Air Force Space Surveillance System. In addition, the United States has been working with a classified satellite defense technology called the Self-Awareness Space Situational Awareness system, which reportedly will be able to pinpoint the source of a laser fired at a satellite.

Redundancy and shielding can also deter limited attacks against satellites. The innate redundancy of large satellite constellations could make attacking them too risky; such an assault would fail to significantly impair U.S. space control while still inviting retaliation. Meanwhile, more widespread use of resistant antenna designs, filters, surge arresters and fiber-optic components, which are less vulnerable to attack, is already being explored to further shield satellites from jamming, dazzling and blinding.

Finally, the United States can work alongside its global partners and allies to convey the idea that a full-blown battle that would destroy orbiting satellites would be bad for all of humanity. Reinforcing this message and openly tying it to a powerful U.S. response could further bolster deterrence.Preventing a War in Space

While the United States works to discourage hostilities in space, in no small part to ensure its enduring advantage there, Washington is also taking more steps to plan for the contingency of a war in space. The Department of Defense has nominated the secretary of the U.S. Air Force as the initiative's principal adviser, tasked with coordinating space-related efforts across the military. Late last year, the United States also established the Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center at Colorado's Schriever Air Force Base. The center facilitates information sharing across the national security space enterprise and has already run a number of wargame scenarios to simulate conflict in orbit.

Furthermore, the Pentagon has added $5 billion to its space programs budget in 2016, pushing the total to about $27 billion. The budget provides for spending on technologies and tactics that can help the United States mitigate and recover from a space attack. One effort, spearheaded by the Operationally Responsive Space Office, aims to develop small satellites and associated launch systems that can be built and deployed quickly and cheaply. (For the most part, the current U.S. fleet consists of large, sophisticated and expensive satellites, some of which cost billions of dollars and take years to construct.)

As part of this endeavor, the office has directed the development of a standardized but modular satellite chassis that allows for multiple payload variations. The result is increased flexibility, as well as lower costs and quicker turnaround in production. Developing a less expensive and more efficient way to launch replacements for destroyed or disabled systems is the next step. With that in mind, the Operationally Responsive Space Office is funding the development of the Spaceborne Payload Assist Rocket-Kauai (SPARK) launch system, designed to send miniaturized satellites into low-Earth and sun-synchronous orbits. In its efforts to rapidly launch swarms of miniaturized satellites on the cheap, the U.S. military is also looking to leverage the private sector. Companies such as Virgin Galactic (with the LauncherOne) and the Rocket Lab (with the Electron Vehicle) have expressed keen interest in the initiative.

The small satellite revolution promises the speedy replacement of disabled satellites in the event of attack — theoretically securing the U.S. military's use of space constellations in support of operations during a conflict. Small satellites are not a magic bullet, however; key satellite functions will still depend on bulkier and more complex systems, such as the large but critically important nuclear-hardened command-and-control mission satellites. Many of these systems involve hefty antennas and considerable power sources.

Given that access to orbit may not be guaranteed during a war in space, the United States has also been exploring alternative ways to perform some of the core functions that satellites now provide. At this stage, high-flying unmanned aerial vehicles with satellite-like payloads offer the most advanced alternative. But considering the vehicles' vulnerability to sophisticated air defenses, their lower altitude and endurance relative to orbital satellites, and their limited global reach, this remains a tentative solution at best.

Overall, the United States is getting far more serious about the threat of space warfare. Investment in new technologies is increasing, and the organizational architecture to deal with such a contingency is being put in place. In the race between shield and sword, however, there is no guarantee that offensive ASAT capabilities will not have the advantage, potentially denying critical access to space during a catastrophic celestial war.The High Cost of a War in Space

Increased competition in space is reviving fears of a war there, one with devastating consequences. Humanity depends on space systems for communication, exploration, navigation and a host of other functions integral to modern life. Moreover, future breakthroughs may await in space, including solar energy improvements, nuclear waste disposal and extraterrestrial mining.

A war in space would disable a number of key satellites, and the resulting debris would place vital orbital regions at risk. The damage to the world economy could also be disastrous. In severity, the consequences of space warfare could be comparable to those of nuclear war. What's more, disabling key constellations that give early launch warnings could be seen as the opening salvo in a nuclear attack, driving the threat of a wider conflagration.

While the United States and other nations are taking measures to better prepare for a potential war in space, their emphasis will likely remain on deterrence. This is an important notion to understand, not only for potential U.S. enemies but also for the United States itself. For instance, it is conceivable that technological advancements in the coming decades could allow the United States to recover militarily from a space clash more quickly than the ever-more space dependent China or Russia. In such a scenario, the costs that a space war would have for the world as a whole might be enough to dissuade Washington from launching its own space attack.

Want to Blast 3,000 Rockets Into Outer Space? Come to New ZealandThe rocket industry, hoping to launch thousands of microsatellites in coming years, rushes to one of the last places on Earth with few commercial flights, shipping routes, cities—or people; ‘Pigs in Space’ jokes in parliament

By Rob TaylorJan. 9, 2017 12:22 p.m. ET3 COMMENTS

MAHIA PENINSULA, New Zealand—The next generation of satellite executives dream of firing a rocket a week into the skies. But they’re running up against an unusual problem for star trekkers. A lack of space.

“We went to all the launch ranges in America,” said Peter Beck, a wiry-haired engineer who a decade ago founded Calif.-based aerospace company Rocket Lab. “They just didn’t allow the frequency that we needed in order to make space accessible for everybody.”

Finding an empty corner of the world isn’t easy for an industry expected to launch as many as 3,000 microsatellites over the next several years.

Take out flight paths of commercial airlines, shipping routes, towns and cities and the map shrinks pretty quickly. In the U.S., orbital launch sites are government owned, which represents another drawback in terms of cost and access. There’s Siberia, of course, but the idea of taking commercially sensitive technology to Russia makes some executives uneasy, before factoring in difficulties in getting there.

“A small island nation in the middle of nowhere,” said Mr. Beck, “is pretty much exactly what you want.”

Welcome to New Zealand: earthquake-prone, dotted with volcanoes and containing six times as many sheep as people. The country doesn’t even have a combat air force, having scrapped its warplanes about 15 years ago to save money.

Yet the South Pacific country has become the unlikely frontier in a drive to open a private rocket-launch site, servicing a soaring market for tiny satellites, many the size of a shoe box.

Mr. Beck, a native New Zealander whose company controls what it calls the world’s first private orbital-launch complex, sees the remote location as a help rather than hindrance—there is almost nothing but ocean between New Zealand and South America. That gives the company easy access to airspace, compared with the busy air and sea movements around the U.S., as well a bigger range of lucrative orbit paths.

Budding satellite entrepreneurs swiftly encountered a problem: New Zealand hadn’t expected to join the space race. Putting rockets into the skies required a regulatory framework, which the country lacked. It also needed a safeguard agreement with the U.S. to maintain secrecy around prized rocket technology. In a country averse to showiness, New Zealand’s Parliament seemed surprised by the novelty.

On a recent day, lawmaker David Clark rose to speak at the first reading of the Outer Space and High Altitude Activities Bill to croon a recital of Elton John’s “Rocket Man” to general bemusement. “She packed my bags last night, pre-flight. Zero hour 9 a.m.,” said Mr. Clark. “Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone.”

David Bowie, Darth Vader, “The Muppet Show” and “Pigs in Space” also came up in discussions of the bill, which the government hopes will become law by mid-2017. The legislation includes setting up a regulatory agency and signing international safeguards conventions. Mr. Beck already has permission to conduct test flights of the company’s rockets.

On the Mahia Peninsula—a spit of mountainous farmland where Rocket Lab has built its launch pad—the space industry’s arrival hasn’t come without commotion. A “secret” here used to mean protecting prized surf breaks and lobster-fishing sites from summer tourists.

Farmers Pat and Sue O’Brien, who graze sheep and cattle beside the new launch-pad access road, say Rocket Lab’s arrival spawned conspiracy theories. “People are slowly getting the mindset Rocket Lab are a great big space freight company, rather than one carrying bombs and nuclear weapons,” said Mr. O’Brien. “There have been some crazy questions at community meetings.”

Mark Browne, a contractor hired to repair dirt roads over Mahia’s precipitous passes to turn them from farm tracks to roads safe for trucks carrying rocket fuel, said secrecy provisions enforced by Rocket Lab meant he couldn’t even tell staff what they were working on, while also triggering other unexpected concerns.

“People like to treat the road now like a rally circuit,” Mr. Browne said. “They come around a corner expecting no one to be there. A truck with a rocket is a bit of a surprise.”

For Mahia’s volunteer fire brigade, made up mostly of farmers, the prospect of a rocket accident raised eyebrows. Nigel Hall, who heads the New Zealand Fire Service here, has been carrying out practice drills and plans to have extra people on hand when Rocket Lab starts test launches early in 2017.

“The mixing of fuel products used to launch the rocket was something new to most us,” Mr. Hall said. “But we eventually reckoned if there was some kind of failure, after the bang we’d just be left with what we’re usually left with round here: a grass fire. There’s nothing else to burn.”

Rocket Lab, backed by aerospace giant Lockheed Martin Corp., hopes to be the first company to begin commercially launching miniaturized satellites on a weekly basis from its own launch site. The company plans to use a newly constructed pad here and a two-stage ‘Electron’ rocket, built of carbon composite and 3D-printed, battery-powered engines.

Residents of the Mahia Peninsula, who call themselves “Mahiatians,” can sense an opportunity for jobs and rocket tourism in their new but still alien industry, with plans to build holiday units and offer bus rides to starry-eyed space tourists.

“The last thing that happened here that stirred up so much excitement, with people for and against, was the plan for a new sewerage system,” said Janey Bowen, owner of the Cafe Mahia restaurant, who plans to rebrand it as Mahia’s Rocket Café. On the revamped menu: a thruster hamburger, rocket cookies and a galaxy smoothie.

On a remote peninsula that only a few years ago had no web access, internet company owner Ronald Brice said he has had to install broadband links with speeds allowing Rocket Lab to monitor launches from Auckland, 370 miles away.

“Most people in Mahia now have world-leading broadband,” said Mr. Brice.

Others are a touch underwhelmed, being more attuned over the years to other legendary exploits along the coast here. Mahia is where the folkloric Maori hero Maui is said to have punched himself in the nose to draw blood and lure a fish that turned out to be New Zealand’s North Island.

“I have been to Cape Canaveral to see a rocket go up once,” said Pauline Tangiora, a Maori elder from Mahia’s Rongomaiwahine Tribe. “It didn’t impress me at all.”

NASA Continues Its Journey in SpaceGeopolitical DiaryFebruary 23, 2017 | 01:12 GMT Text SizePrintNASA researchers have yet to find evidence of life on the seven planets in the TRAPPIST-1 exoplanet system, but looking for it provides discoveries of its own. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "Life is a journey, not a destination." The sentiment applies as much to life on Earth as it does to the search for life beyond it. On Wednesday, a research team led by NASA announced the discovery of seven Earth-sized planets in orbit around TRAPPIST-1, an ultracool dwarf star located nearly 40 light-years (about 378 trillion kilometers or 235 trillion miles) away. All seven planets may have liquid water on their surface, and three are located in the exoplanet system's habitable zone, the area that could sustain life, though researchers have yet to find evidence of either. Even if NASA confirms that life exists outside of our planet, it will likely be too far away for Earth's inhabitants to interact with it anytime soon. As the researchers acknowledged in their news conference, discovering life beyond Earth is not the point of looking for it. Instead, it's the process — and the discoveries and inventions born of it — that counts.

Since the V-2 rocket was first deployed in World War II, aeronautic and atmospheric research have been prized for their military applications. But deep space exploration, astrophysics and planetary science research have always been at the fringes of scientific research and, by extension, funding. The farther research efforts in the fields have ventured, quite literally, the more trouble governments have had determining their tangible benefits and justifying their continuation. NASA's budget has been in steady decline since the height of the space race with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Furthermore, only a small portion of its budget — less than 30 percent this fiscal year — goes to space science, excluding human spaceflight.

Space missions beyond low-Earth orbit fall more or less into three categories. The first is long-range space exploration missions such as projects to send spacecraft to other bodies in our solar system. The second encompasses the study of Earth and planetary science, which NASA considers its bailiwick, while the third covers manned missions beyond Earth orbit. Because each category builds on the others, and all are inextricably linked, they are all equally valuable, even if the tangible benefits of each area aren't equally apparent. Planetary science, astrobiology and Earth science missions make up the platform of knowledge from which manned and long-range exploratory missions are launched. In the next several decades, travel to Mars or the outer solar system through unmanned — and perhaps even manned — missions will become easier and more frequent. But to undertake these kinds of ambitious endeavors, researchers must first answer fundamental questions about where to go, what to study and how. Closer to home, space exploration offers invaluable insight into how our planet works. The study of solar irradiance, for instance, is important for understanding Earth's climate and the degree to which it is changing.

Even the most basic space missions, moreover, yield technological breakthroughs and inventions that pave the way for advances in engineering. Missions often require cutting-edge developments in areas such as solar energy storage and communication technology, high-temperature alloys and cryogenics. For example, NASA and its partners are currently developing the James Webb Space Telescope, an observational platform that will be instrumental in determining whether life exists in the TRAPPIST-1 system. One of the telescope's most important tools, the Mid-Infrared Instrument, will require scientists to use advanced cryogenic techniques that can then be employed in a growing number of applications in everyday life on Earth.

The breakthroughs and discoveries that a long-range exploratory mission produces are even more expansive. The number of engineering problems that must be overcome to send someone to Mars is staggering. And many questions — such as how to clean laundry — are not as simple as they might seem at first glance. Only space exploration gives scientists the chance to devise and test solutions to these problems, many of which exist in one iteration or another on Earth. The innovations required to support human life over the course of long-term missions, for example, will doubtless have applications back home.

But space science is about more than new technologies or even discoveries. Practically every branch of science developed as an offshoot of another discipline. Astronomy probably evolved from the study of celestial bodies in religious or philosophical pursuits. After the scientific revolution some centuries later, mathematicians and physicists began sharing their views and adding to the field, laying the foundations of modern astronomy. When Galileo Galilei and Johannes Kepler first began looking at the sky, they could not have comprehended the applications that their findings would be used in centuries later. Today, the benefits of looking for life beyond Earth may seem elusive, but only time will tell what the journey has in store.

• China: China reportedly carried out an unsuccessful flight test of a new anti-satellite missile late last month. Though the Dong Neng-3 direct ascent missile reportedly malfunctioned in the upper atmosphere after launch, China is believed to be making strides in developing its capabilities in space. This is increasingly becoming a critical element of war. We need a better grasp of the state of the Chinese program, as well as those of the two other major players in space: Russia and the United States

You mean Americans are not going to Chinese Universities getting jobs in their industries and governments and sending back their findings to us so we know exactly what is going on and can reap the rewards?